# The Human in the Loop : AI That Actually Sounds Like Me with Corey Koehler
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When I first started using AI in my business, I was hesitant — it felt like a shortcut that might strip away my voice. But in this conversation with Corey Koehler, I learned that when you set it up the right way, AI can actually amplify your voice and make your work better — and faster.
Corey shares how he went from spending hours grinding through client work and side projects to building an AI-powered system that slashed his production time, boosted his income, and gave him more time with his family.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to create consistent content or build your business while keeping your family first, this episode will give you a clear, practical blueprint for making AI actually _work_ for you — without losing your soul along the way.
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### Top Takeaways
* AI isn’t just for shortcuts — it’s an amplifier for your creativity and problem-solving if you build the right systems around it.
* Setting up “projects” inside ChatGPT (or Claude) lets you preload important context, like your business model, ideal customer, and writing style — so you’re not starting from scratch every time.
* Authenticity still matters: letting AI write _for_ you without human editing risks sounding bland and disconnected — “human in the loop” is key.
### Show Notes
* Corey’s Freebie
* Redefining Retirement
* Corey on LinkedIn
_Check out my other shows at_ _https://network.streamlined.fm_ __
Transcript
**Joe Casabona:** I took my kids to Disney World earlier this year, and one of the things that I noticed leading up to and during the trip is that they kept saying things like, oh, we can do this and do this, and we should do this now, and we can do this, and let’s do this. And I had to remind them to slow down. We’ll have time to do everything, but it’s hard when there’s so much to do when there are so many possibilities when you look at all of this stuff and it’s neat. And that’s how my conversation with Corey Kahler felt. We started talking about all of the ways that his AI systems have saved him time. And I wanna do a new type of episode for this show that’s more of a case study, But I found that AI to a lot of people is a lot like Disney World. There are so many possibilities. And so I think you’ll enjoy this episode.
Not because you’ll come out with a super clear implement these things and these things will happen sort of vibe, but you’re gonna see someone who is really excited because AI has cut their time by 80%. And I got some really good ideas, and I know you will too. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Corey Kahler, where we talk all about CHATCPT and Claude projects and how we are using them to be more efficient so that we can do things like spend time with our family. Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur, a show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want. I know you’re busy, so let’s get started. Alright. I am here with Corey Kaylor. Corey is a long time solopreneur and founder of redefiningretirement.io, where he helps Gen x creators and consultants turn their knowledge into job free income using newsletters, automation, and AI.
And Corey has the dubious honor of being the first interview for this new case study format I’m trying here on Streamline Solopreneur. Corey, how are you today?
**Corey Koehler:** Well, I am doing, just fine. No complaints here. Any any complaint would be a first world problem, and we don’t really have to talk about that. So
**Joe Casabona:** I like that. I like that point of view. I try to think about that myself as well. And so I like, my kids will complain about something. I’m like, life is very hard for you. But they’re, like, eight and younger, so they don’t know anything else. Okay. Cool.
So first of all, I did a brief info, intro of your business, but can you tell us a little bit about, like, how you run your business day to day? Like, what are the things you do for it? How do you get clients? And just, like, a quick, like, high level overview of that.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. And just to be a little more specific and give a little more context, Kind of by day, I’m a Google Ads manager and a media buyer, so that’s kinda, like, my main part of my business. But then I also started redefining retirement as it’s kind of a side hustle, but it is more than that just because I’m definitely putting a lot more time into it, and I think that it could be something, on its own someday. And so from that perspective, I’m always trying to find ways to kinda cut time out of both because, you know, I’m trying to do a couple things at the same time. I’ve got multiple clients to manage. So, so yeah. And I think, part of what we’re gonna talk about is some of the Chattahoochee stuff that I do because that just speeds everything up, both for my client work and for my my side project, the, redefining retirement. So that, on a day to day basis, yeah, I’m using AI all the time.
A year ago, maybe 25% of the time. Now, man, I don’t know. Trying to think. Probably 50 to 75% of the day is spent, doing stuff, just because once you once you build out some systems, it’s just almost kinda stupid not to in a way. You know? So
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, like, longtime listeners of this show will know that I have been AI hesitant for a long time, because, you know, when it first rolled out, people were like, oh, this could write things for me, and it could do all the all the work. And I’m like, what’s the point of of writing your own story if you’re not gonna write it? But but like you said, I’m using it a lot more these days.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. And I understand the the hesitancy, and I think that there’s there’s multiple ways to look at AI. You know, you can look at it like, you know, it’s replacing all the stuff that you don’t wanna do as a replacement for yourself, but you can also look at it as as an enhancement to yourself. Right? So you’re you’re powering yourself up. You know? It’s kinda like I think about it like, like Super Mario Brothers when you’d eat the, you run into the flower, you know, and and and then you’d grow.
**Joe Casabona:** Yep.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. So I I kinda look at it like that. And it’s it’s both things. Right? It’s also an educator. So there’s so many different things that you can do with it. And when I say that I use it, you know, 50 to 75% of the day now, it’s like, it’s not all for replacement activity. It’s also for, like, ideation. It’s also for things like, you know, problem solving.bLike, hey. You know what? Give me you know it it already knows so much about me. Like, I’ll just have it look at what I’m doing. Am I missing something? And are there any blind spots? Or if I have a business idea or a product idea, I can, you know, give me the pros and cons. Tell me if this is a good move. So you’re doing stuff like that. I’ve also entered in, like, for instance, if I hear somebody in a podcast, I might ask, JCPT if they’re familiar with the author. Right? And it would be, you know, hey.
Are you familiar with The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris? It’s like, yes, we are, Corey. You know? Or yes, I am. Or and it will kinda give me a layout, and then you can kinda use it as a study guide. So there’s just, like, there’s just so many different things. And in all of those activities that I just described to you, may not have been possible in that short of a time frame, you know, a year ago or even three, four years ago. And and, also to give you context, I started doing, Internet marketing back when I was working full time in the mid or in the mid two thousands. A re you know, I used to be a mechanical draftsman, and, you know, I did a lot of this stuff at night. And some of the stuff that I would work on at night with some of my first couple blogs and newsletters were I mean, it’s you can only do, like, one thing at at night in a couple hours. Like, whereas now, a lot of that stuff, I could do what I did in a week, you know, in a couple hours. You know? So it you know? So a lot of things have changed over the last, you know, eleven to fifteen years of doing this kind of stuff.
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. You know, it’s really interesting, and this is probably, like, something I will lay out in, like, like, a a bonus episode or over at my audio notes podcast because I was a developer, and and I don’t do that day to day anymore. But, like, I still need some code snippets and boy, oh, boy, AI has been really good for that. But something you shared with me in our kind of, like, pre interview call is, that you have you know, that you’re probably me. You’re probably me, like, I’m you ten years ago. Right? Something like that. Right? Like so you had small kids when you were working at night, and even, you know, you have, even, like, three or four years ago. And I suspect that you also wanna be a present dad while running your business.
And so, like but what did your workflows look like before AI? Like, was it like you didn’t feel like you could get enough done in the day, or were you I always worry about sacrificing family time for work.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. It, there’s kinda, like, two parts to this because there was a there was a pre full time Internet marketing guy and a, you know, and a post, you know, when I went full time. So 2013 is when I went, like, full time. I’m all in, digital entrepreneur, whatever you wanna call yourself, solopreneur these days. And before that, it was definitely very tricky, and my governor was my wife. You know, like, what you know, why are you spending all this time and da da da da? You know, you’re always on your computer doing stuff. So I had very little balance at that point. So it was just just grinding away.
I was ex you know, I was excited about what I was working on. I was doing this, and she couldn’t see the value necessarily. You know, it took her a long time, but she just looked at it as me just playing on the Internet. Right?
**Joe Casabona:** Mhmm.
**Corey Koehler:** Which she doesn’t think that way at all anymore, just for the record. But, but, yeah, that was that was the thing. So so just by her having to tell me that, I did not have that sort of a, of a balance. You know? I wasn’t completely absent. You know? I I was, you know, I was still around. I was still at home. You know? I’m doing stuff, you know, helping with supper and going to, you know, the sporting events and stuff like that. You know? So for that stuff, yes.
Now post, you know, being full time, on the Internet I know that sounds weird to say it like that on the Internet. You know? Yeah. Post that, when I was full time, well, then it opened up a lot more, opportunity because now it’s like, you know what? I don’t have to ask my boss if I can leave, you know, to go to my daughter’s gymnastics meet, you know, because we gotta leave town, or my son was a bowler. So, you know, there’s all these scenarios. Or my wife had stuff that she needed to do, so, like, it would be my turn to take care of running the kids around town or cooking supper that night. So it made things a lot easier from that perspective. So just that, just eliminating the the full time job and having a boss, was the biggest time save or at least, you know, quality time generator, I guess. Yeah.
**Corey Koehler:** I don’t know. So yeah. Because there’s so many things that I never if I was not full time doing what I’m doing and I wasn’t able to, you know, work online and control my own schedule, there’s a lot of things that I probably would have missed out on or just wouldn’t have been involved in, over the years. And I take it for granted now. I mean, this is my well, so 2013. This is I’ve been eleven years in. It it’s almost getting to the point where I kinda forget a little bit about what that was like. And it and it gets easier too because my kids are now I I have one that’s, you know, out of college.
I have one that’s in college, and then I have one that’s, like, you know, in the middle of high school, like a sophomore in high school. So it there’s there’s a lot more time, you know. But still, you know, we we still go, you know, get it perk our daughter up from college. There’s still my my other daughter still does, some sporting sport activities and stuff like that. So we still can just, hey. Leave in the day. We’re gonna go watch Maggie do cross country today. It starts at you know, we gotta leave at two.
I’m gonna ask my boss. Hey, Corey. Yep, Corey. Okay. Go ahead. You got my permission. So Yeah. I don’t know. Does that answer your question? I mean, I don’t know if it’s like
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. Well, I mean so, I mean, this is the thing. Like, everybody’s business is different, and I’m like, I am starting what you are ending. Right? Like, my daughter plays cello, and my son is starting baseball. And, you know, my kids are eight and younger, and so, I’m starting to enter the thick of it. Similar to you, like, I left my full time job. I mean, I was always, like, a freelancer. I tell people I was, like, a realistic, less attractive Zach Morris when I was a kid. Like, I would figure out how to make money in high school, but, like, not by, like, renting out the parking lot to a car dealership, but by, like, burning Mercedes for people. And I’ve I’ve, like, always carried that with me. And, when I left my full time job in 2017, it was basically, like, I either work for this agency where we’re doing work for, like, Fortune 100 companies, and then I have to either give up my side hustle or miss out on family time, and I decided to give up the full time job and make my side hustle my front and center hustle, and, you know, not miss my daughter’s first steps because I had to work late for for someone. So, I I think like that, those decisions are really important. But then I think, you know, my whole business is staked on this, and it’s my experience and the experience of a lot of people as well. When you’re the when you’re the source of the paycheck, there’s this extra pressure where you might feel like you have to work more to get that extra client so that you can make payroll this month.
Well, that is that is a big one. And to just sit here and say that, like, I never experienced that, and it was, like, easy and oh my god. You know? Because I literally had a time when I was man, I would say, like, about 2,015 to 17, somewhere in there, where my wife asked me, like, how much money I have that month, and I literally only had, like, $500. That’s all I earned. And you wanna talk about feeling like the worst dad in the in the planet, that will do it right there. It was it was a it was a very it was a low point. So I ended up having to take, some side jobs, like some, you know, go back, and it it sucked really bad. Trust me.
It definitely tested me. But, you know, the silver lining was, you know, one of those jobs turned out to be, a sales related job. I answered an ad one day on Craigslist of all places. There was, like, an RV dealership that was Nice. That was, like, hey. You know, we need somebody to manage our website. I’m, like, I’ll tell you what. I’ll manage a website.
I also noticed that you’re not doing Google Ads. I can help you with that too because I think that would really help you. And all I ask in return is that, like, you teach me how to do sales. Right? So I was doing, like, hand to hand sales at RV and boat dealership, and that was when the light bulb went off, with with me as far as, earlier in my business. I just wasn’t answering objections. I just didn’t understand how to do sales very well. Mhmm. So I would have super feast and famine moments, as, you know, as a freelancer. Right? Because you’d you’d have somebody and then all of a sudden, boom, two clients are gone. And you’re like, oh, now what? You know? So I learned how to, you know, stay consistent with my prospecting. I also learned how to answer objections so that people were, you know because pre those days, it would be like, hey, you know, sir, do you like Google Ads? And they’re like, no. It sucks. It doesn’t work at all. You know? And you’re like and before that, I’d be like, oh, okay. I guess you’re not a client, you know? Right. But then post sales knowledge, you’re just like, well, why is that, sir, that you don’t like it? And then they go on to tell you that their their cousin Eddie, who learned to fake you know, Google Ads a week ago, started running the campaign.
**Corey Koehler:** So you’re like, oh, well, that’s why it didn’t work. Right. Right. You know? So so then now I could at least lead him down the path, and that just kinda broke everything open. So, anyway, I’ll stop there because I was kinda going off on a tangent for you. But just to give you an idea.
**Joe Casabona:** But I think this is helpful. Right? Because it it is that and, like, I went through it too, and I’m lucky that my wife supported me. And I had supportive friends too who were like, dude, like, you were born to be an entrepreneur. Like, this is who you are. Don’t let, like, a rough patch set you off that path. And my wife is a nurse, and so, like, you know, it it we had money coming in, just not as much as I felt we needed. And it so everybody you know, I think, like, a lot of people hit that. Right? And I think it’s like the Internet hustlers tell us, just quit your job.
**Joe Casabona:** Just launch a website. You’ll make money. And it’s like, it’s not that. Right?
**Corey Koehler:** Well, I I will tell you, like, that’s, like, one big thing that I’ve noticed over the years is there was a lot of guilt about that. You know, it’s like, what am I doing wrong? I’m the I’m not moving as fast. And trust me, there were a lot of times where I stopped a little too short or I didn’t do a little bit of this this or a little bit of that that probably could have, you know, magnified the success of a particular project. But, one thing is you really have to be careful who your gurus are because, you know, like, let’s just take Dan Coe. Nothing against Dan Coe. He’s a great guy. You know, even a Justin Welsh. They don’t have kids.
They don’t have kids. So if they’re gonna sit there and tell you that you need to, you know, you need to do this and, you know, you have to do this and just, you know, hey. Spend, you know, I get it. And that’s where they’re at. They’re maybe not Justin Welsh, but in Danco’s case, he’s like a younger guy. So what does he have to worry about other than just making his business go every day, or, you know, go and drink with his buddies at night? I don’t know. Whatever.
**Joe Casabona:** That’s Right. That’s what I would have been doing at his age.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. But, yeah, once you have kids, other than the time factor, just like you said, there is an extra wait, because now you are, you know, one of the main sources of income for your family that makes the difference between whether your kids eat, whether they can sign up for gymnastics for
**Joe Casabona:** Mhmm.
**Corey Koehler:** Thousands of dollars a year. It’s crazy. Right. You know, so Yeah. So, yeah, it’s, it’s definitely a a shift. So you just be careful, you know, who your goos are. I always tell people that. So
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. Yeah. I I like that a lot because it’s true. And then, like, we always we always we always show the rosy pit. Right? Like, look. Again, like, I don’t wanna, like, dump on anybody. They’re obviously very successful. But, like, Dickie Bush posted something on Twitter a couple years ago that was like, here’s how you make a million dollars.
Come up with a good idea. Your customers will sell it for you. And I’m like, you know you you know that’s obviously not true. Yeah. But people who are, like, just getting into it are like, oh, all I need is a good idea, or all I need is a website. And it’s like, no. You you need time to sell, and you need to understand the sales process.
**Corey Koehler:** It’s a very tricky situation, and I’ve thought about it a lot, like, especially with my new project with my redefining retirement because it’s a fine line that you have to walk. Because, you know, there’s that old line, like, you attract bees with honey. Right? Mhmm. You you sell people what they want, not what they need. And you have to and and that’s, like, totally real. You know, it’s just like somebody like, hey. You really should be eating your vegetables every single day, buddy, you know, because it’s gonna help you live longer. You know? But it’s like, no.
I mean, you can’t do that because just, you know, human nature isn’t gonna you know, they’re not gonna they’re not gonna be like, oh, yeah. You’re right, man. I’m gonna start eating broccoli every day because you said that was the key to living longer. You know what I mean? It’s like, no. You have to reframe that, to capture their attention, to get them to start to listen to you. And then eventually, you, you know, you give them, like, hey. Look. You know, if let’s be to you know, let’s be real now.
You know, you have to do this. And it’s the same thing with I’m always trying to find that balance of, you know, what is what is Corey being, like, you know, guru guy versus, you know, like, realist. Right? Because I can’t be too real because, you know, they don’t wanna know how much it sucked to be, you know, telling your wife you only have $500 a month for a month. But it was a very pinnacle, very, it needed to happen, and it was the thing that was able to propel me way past what I had for, you know, just what I was making on a in a yearly salary, at my former position. So it’s just it’s just part of the deal. But
**Joe Casabona:** yeah. Yeah. It almost, well, I wanna get to the system next, but it almost reminds me of, you know, I used to think that if I ate spinach, I’d immediately get mussels because of Popeye. I can’t, like, build Popeye cartoons. And it’s like that. It’s like, yeah, eating spinach is good for you, but you’re not gonna instantly be so strong that you could take on, like, a group of bad guys. Right? So, it is it is finding that balance. Right? Like, how do we we do need to capture the attention of our audience and then bring them in and show them the right way to do it.
**Corey Koehler:** And and I think too and I’ll I I know we wanna get to the next thing, but the I guess the last thing I’ll say is I really think that, you know, discussions like this, like us on a video, on a podcast goes a long way towards that. Right? And, you know, when you have when you can only use text a lot of times, you kinda have to grab their attention that way. Yeah. But if you can get people to listen to a podcast and really hear my voice and hear your voice and kinda be like, okay. Well, yeah, this guy, you know, he’s living proof that this works, you know, but there are some things I have to accept, you know, like, if I’m gonna actually get this thing to work, you know, and not to say that there’s not exceptions because there’s those too. But so
**Joe Casabona:** yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s a really good point. Okay. So let’s move on to this system that you built. Right? So you you went through a tough time in your business. You’re you came out of it on the other side, but you know you can be working more efficiently. Right? So tell us a little bit about what led you to build the system that you have now, and then, like, what’s the input and the output. Right? I think this is a really like, what do you put into it, and then what do you end up getting out of it?
**Corey Koehler:** So just to be clear too, this isn’t a system that’s been around since whatever because it’s only been around for maybe a year because Mhmm. I didn’t have AI, you know, in 2017. So so when I saw AI, it was just like, oh my god. All of a sudden, there is so much more in my business that I could do. In the old days, it’s like I couldn’t just whip up a a blog post or a content plan or whatever. I would have to go hire somebody, maybe get a copywriter to help my client and myself, maybe a developer depending on what, you know, what what their, technology stack was. You know, so it’s like, so, yes, this is, like, in the last year, but, like, once you see it, you’re like, oh, okay. Like, now all of a sudden, there’s, like, a lot of plates I can spin, where I can only spin one plate before.
Yeah. So that’s kinda how it it kind of developed. And when I started this redefining retirement, that was one of the reasons I started it, and that’s why I think it’s important for everybody to have a side hustle. Even if you’re at work and you’re just sitting there every day, have something that you can play with on the side. Like, because with this, with my newsletter, with all that stuff, I mean, it it helps me use all the tools and just kinda stay relevant and stay in the game. And that’s just kinda the way it it happened. I slowly just started, you know, geeking out on everything. I used to save, like, a million prompts, you know, like, to do every task that I possibly could.
That became a little tricky after a while, you know. But the tools got better where you don’t necessarily need the great prompts anymore. Or, I started learning about, like, GPT projects, like ChatGPT projects. Claude has projects. And they also custom or, ChatGPT has, custom GPTs.
**Joe Casabona:** Right.
**Corey Koehler:** So now instead of every time you go into, like, a blank and you’re looking at a blank prompt and you have to give it all this information right away, like, okay. Here here’s more about my business again, or here’s more about my client. Here’s what I’m trying to do. You know, instead of, you know, seasoning it, for lack of a better term, with all this information, now you can build a lot of that information upfront. You know, you start with an offer. You start with a a persona or two, that you’re trying to target, and then you kinda build out a business profile. And you have, like, basically the base of, everything that you need. You put it into the, project, and now you can start creating whatever it is you’re trying to create, starting from not from zero, basically. Does that make sense and answer your question a little bit?
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. Yeah. I think so. And I think this is this is, like, really important stuff. Right? Because something that I struggle struggle to still struggle with is, like, doing the appropriate amount of, let’s say, user research for something I’m thinking about. And, like, nothing can replace talking to actual customers, but if you don’t currently have actual customers or you’re testing a new thing, it’s kinda good to I use the developer term of rubber ducking, and, like, this is a term I’ve learned that only developers use. But it’s, developers we talk out our problems a lot when we’re trying to code, and so, some developers would keep a rubber duck on their desk and talk to the rubber duck. And so that’s why it’s called rubber ducking.
So I like to rubber duck a lot with chat g p t. Right? I’m thinking about this. What about this? Oh, have you like, what are 10 questions I should ask sort of thing?
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. And, it you it’s the rubber duck is throwing me off. I’m just I’m like because you’re saying the same thing that I would tell somebody when they’re like, have a persona or an avatar avatar in your mind when you’re writing. You’re always writing or building to one person. Just put somebody in your head, and that’s who you’re writing to. It makes it simpler. Right? Because when you’re trying to write for a thousand people, it makes it way more difficult. Yeah.
I’m a songwriter. Same thing applies. Right? So that’s basically what you’re talking about. And the great thing about, like, the project angle, and the GPT angle is that, like, you know what? When you have tasks that you’re gonna be doing a lot of, you just you just build it up front, which it’s not that big. You just use chat you can use chat g p t to build it all. And then that’s way that way it’s not starting from ground zero. Because if you just go to chatgpt and you just start with a brand new account with nothing, it knows nothing about you, and it will go find you all kinds of information. You know? Like, any it’ll give you anything. You know? So you need to you need to put that lens on of, like, okay. This is all the criteria that we need to fulfill. Now give me the answer through that lens. And that’s where that’s where the time savings comes in, like, really quickly. And then once you just get a little bit more advanced, you can really have, you can really start to dial in just separate parts of projects, you know, whether it’s a social, campaign or building, like, Google Ads campaigns. I I have all kinds of tools that I just start to build them, and it just starts slicing time out of every one of those tasks very quickly.
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. Absolutely. So, so let’s get specific with a project. Something that we’ve talked about is your blog letters. Right? Your blog post newsletters. I really like to focus in on that because people, writing is hard. Right? It’s a muscle that you need to, to work out. And, I feel like for a lot of people, chat GPT has made it easier.
**Joe Casabona:** I don’t use it for writing completely, but I will use it to, proofread to make sure my idea is clear. And if I’m telling an anecdote, I usually, like, double check in chat GPT. Right? Oh, was it, you know, was it, Jim Leiritz who, caught this perfect game or whatever or Jim Abbott who who pitched the perfect the no hitter. Right? And he only had one hand or whatever. So, those are things I already knew, though. So but Yep. If I’m double checking something, right, that’s a good place for chat g p t. So so tell us a little bit about your, let’s talk specifically about one of your projects, and I’d love to talk about your blog letters here too.
**Corey Koehler:** Okay. So how I would do it with, and and just to define what a blog letter is, I Yeah. I think this term existed before I said it, so I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that I just reinvented the wheel and, you know, everything’s awesome. But it it’s just the idea of, like, one of the reasons I use Beehive, for instance, is because they make it very easy for you to, create a piece of content, and you can send it, you know, simultaneously to an email list, and then it also posts as a blog. So if you just put a little bit more thought into it, you you’re saving a lot of time, a, because in the old days and, when I talk old days, I’m talking mid two thousands where I got a WordPress site and it you know, we’re WordPress two point o,
**Joe Casabona:** and then we’re going way back. Yeah. And it’s like you would have to, like, you’d you’d have a blog post, and then you’d be like, okay. Now I gotta go fire up my, you know, Aweber or Mailchimp account, and then I gotta, you know, send that out so that they come back to my blog and read it. Well, now it’s like it happens in one shot. So right there, that’s a time savings. The other time savings that comes from that particular part of, creating is that well, if you think about it a little bit, you can kind of create your content. So it’s SEO optimized. Right? So now you’re giving yourself a shot, with one piece of content. You’re giving yourself a shot to kinda rank in search engines if you put that piece together correctly or in a certain way. Yeah. And SEO is going through a lot of changes right now because of the AI stuff, but there’s also, you know, AI will find your content as well. And I’ve had a few I had my first lead, I shouldn’t say lead, but my first subscriber from ChatGPT, BT, like, about two weeks ago. I was like, oh my god. Look at that. And it was from a an article that I didn’t necessarily, like, I didn’t necessarily, like, angle it towards any AI search engine or whatever, but it just picked it up.
**Corey Koehler:** And it must so I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how it got there, but I’ll take it. But you can see, like, you’re just making one piece of content. It starts to kinda branch out. And as far as what you’re talking about before, as far as actually creating the content, well, that, you make a good point. That’s the same thing I do too, because I have a million quotes in my brain from, like, all these year, you know, seventeen plus years of marketing online. And like, who did say that? Usually, I go to perplexity. I don’t know.
I kinda trust it just a little bit more, but, I’ll go over there. And same thing with statistics. If I see people you’ll see a lot of people throwing statistics out there. I’ll go and I’ll dig for the, you know, the literal study that had that particular stat. You know, because sometimes you’ll find that it’s just yeah. They’re just made up, you know. So I will use it for that. And then as far as creating the content, I’ve done it both ways.
When I first started redefining retirement, I was writing these and editing them myself like I would in the old days when I wrote blogs. But as I learned more about, AI, well, then I started, okay, how much of this can I do with ChatGPT? And I did write some, like, here, ChatGPT, just write everything for me. And it was just like, no. You know? Like, Claude like, Claude was better. Like, it it like, Claude, I think, does a better job. ChatGPT is better now just in general. But no matter what and understand that I am a songwriter. You know, I have a couple albums, and I think about, you know, authenticity and cred, you know, street cred, all that stuff.
So this stuff is all circulating in my brain, and I need to make sure that something has a piece of my soul in it every time. Right? So
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah.
**Corey Koehler:** It basically would eliminate your soul, element into your content. I just made that up. I should maybe
**Joe Casabona:** Oh, I see.
**Corey Koehler:** Blog post. But Yeah. But, but, but yeah. So you I learned how to, there’s a there’s a guy one of the I’m gonna give him a shout out. Russ at, jointheclick.com. He they they’re it’s like an AI marketing community. Like, we’re this is where a lot of I learned a lot of stuff from him about this, but he always talks about human in the loop. I’ve heard this from other people too.
So not just him, but human in the loop, meaning that, like, you know, you can go and just tell AI to write the article for you, you know, take it, paste it, slap it, you know, but when you use a human in the loop, basically, you you do check ins. Right? Like, create this part, check-in. Create this part, check-in. You know what I’m saying? So you’re not just letting it run free. You’re you’re guiding it along the way. So a lot of the way I would create content now is, yes, I might still have those days because I still write as much as I possibly can almost every day if I can. Just old school, just get on the thing or on my iPhone when I’m out for a walk. But I’ve also started doing stuff, like, where I’ll use, like, Whisperflow, where I’ll just, like, dictate something.
I’ll just gush stuff out of my brain onto you know, in a Notion and or I’ll just brainstorm just whatever my article idea is with my research. I’ll, you know, copy paste and put different, you know, references in there. And then I’ll go, okay, ChachiPT. Let’s, let’s let’s just reorganize. Let’s shuffle let’s reshuffle this. It’s you know what you know what I’m saying? Like, it it’ll just go through. It’ll be like, alright. And it already knows because along with those projects and, like, the custom GPTs, you know, I built out, like, a rubric.
I’ve built out, you know, a a style guide so it knows exactly, like, this is how Corey writes. So I trained it on, like, years of my writing. I I happen to just have blogs from, you know, going way back almost seventeen years, you know, so not everybody has that. But but over time, so now it it gets way closer, to to everything. But it’s still my voice. It’s still my original idea. It’s just that it might be more easier to digest because I didn’t have a sentence that ran on for, like, you know, two paragraphs, you know, you know, or something like that. Or Yeah.
It’ll make it just a little bit more clear by just moving things around. So I use it like that, but it still has my essence available, you know, like, in in that. And that’s and that is the sweet spot. That is what we all have to keep in mind as humans as we go into this whole era is that humans do business with humans. Humans wanna talk to humans, so that is the secret sauce. So I wanna protect that. So I’m not all in, like, with that. And I know some people do that, but, you know, whatever.
**Corey Koehler:** It is what it is.
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. And it’s it’s the stuff that that isn’t gonna stand out, I think. Right? Like, I you know, I had a spirited debate with my friend Alastair about a year ago. And towards the end of our debate because I said, saying you used AI to write your book. Like, saying, like, AI wrote your book for you, essentially, is like saying you used a car to run a marathon. Right? Like, it’s like, sure. You you did it, but did you do it? And he said, like, what if I fed ChatGPT everything I’ve ever written up until this point? Then would you agree that Chat GPT wrote a book by me? And I said, no. Because you have life experiences beyond what you wrote about ChatGPT doesn’t know what happened to you today or yesterday if you didn’t write about it. Yeah. And all of that is what makes us human and what makes good writing good writing.
**Corey Koehler:** One thing I learned too when I was I was really skirting the edge of, like, you know, 100%, you know, written by the AI was, I would realize that some of the like, people would ask me questions about my content. I’m like, you know what? I didn’t I didn’t write it. So then you don’t remember all the bullet points. Yeah. You know, you’re like, oh, crap. Like, you know what I mean? So then I started, you know, then the then the street cred muscles started going off, and I started feeling like an imposter because I’m like, well, I really need to focus on really understanding this stuff before I start to do it. And one of the ways that you do understand it is is writing about it or at least trying to get it out of your head. You know, and I’m not gonna say that I’m, like, just super, like, purest with this stuff because, you know, there are deadlines sometimes, and you can’t get every single thing going.
But it’s definitely something to think about, and it’s definitely not something I’m doing, you know, 100%. So so, yeah, a lot of things, to unpack in that little conversation we just had. But
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. So so let’s let’s bring it back to the actual systems prompts, because I think I suspect that people are listening and they’re like, okay. Like, I’ve heard of projects. They haven’t really worked for me. I still don’t think Claude sounds like me or whatever. If if someone wants to recreate kind of what you’ve done for themselves, like, what do you recommend them do? What do you recommend that they do?
**Corey Koehler:** Interesting. So you’re just talking about, like, specifically the projects type of a is that what you’re
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. So, like, so, like, this, you know, the this kind of use of AI in the projects, they’ve helped they’ve helped you be more efficient. Right? Like, you can you said earlier that, like, the things that you do in a day used to take you a week. Right? So, like, if someone says, like, I want that for me. I spend five hours writing my newsletter every morning, and I feel like it’s good, but I feel like I can do it in less time. Like, what what should they do? What have you done to solve that problem?
**Corey Koehler:** Okay. One I’ll one I’ll think that I thought of, like, when you were talking earlier about, like, trying to get feedback from actual people, which I highly suggest, you know, talk to your customers. But I would say this though, that, like, there are I have a prompt that, like, if you want to, go out there and look for the voice of the customer. Right? So you can use, like, a deep research on Chegg PPT, and you say, okay, here’s a couple competitors. I want you to scour Reddit, Google business reviews, Quora, like, whatever. And it will go and it will think for, like, twenty minutes, and it will bring back basically what your client or your customers are talking about in their language. Right? So that would be one way to do it. So then now you have this document that you can dump.
You can, I like to save everything, like, in a Google Doc, download it onto my hard drive so I always have it no matter where I’m at in a LLM? Mhmm. I can always upload it. So that would be that right away gets you very fast. Then that would have taken days, probably. Right. Maybe weeks. I don’t know. Depends how deep you’re gonna go.
Now it takes maybe twenty minutes, with the deep research situation. As far as, like, the other stuff, like like I was mentioning before, like, I’m gonna go and build, a persona. I’m gonna go build an offer. And how I would start is go find offers that you like. Like, if you are, and and maybe I take this for granted because I’ve been marketing for so long. It’s like, I can always think of frameworks that I always liked. Going back, like, ten, fifteen years, I’m like, oh, god. There was this guy that Jeremy Schumacher, you know, Schumacher from Schumacher used to do, but I don’t even know if he’s around anymore.
But, you know, he was a big Internet marketer back in the day, and it’s like, oh, that’s right. You know? And if I have a PDF somewhere buried in my hard drive, I might tell, I’ll actually tell Jack JCPT to, like, define it, break it down, put it into a framework, and then I’ll go and I’ll start, like, workshopping it into, a prompt. Right? And then and then that can help me create the documentation that I need. If you know of, a customer that has a really good offer that you like, you can take that particular offer, tell ChatGPT to basically define it, break it down. Maybe you can grab two or three offers from somebody that’s in your, and have it compare them both. And then go and tell it to create an offers in a certain structure. It helps to have frameworks. That’s one of the things that I learned from all the different AI courses I’ve taken is how to have, like, a good framework.
But you kinda know this stuff. You can go find blog posts. You can find, notebook l m is great for this. Like, if you know there’s a YouTube video out there describing, like, how to create something in a specific way, go grab it, dump it into, notebook l m, and now they have, like, mind maps. Right? So you can now you have a complete structure, you know, and then you just go and you create, you just tell it, create an offer for this. But here, change these two things, And now you make a template. You download that. You slap it in your you know, wherever you wanna save it, and then you upload it into a project.
And now from that point on, you always have that as your reference. Right? That is my offer, or that’s a framework I can use to create another offer. Same thing with a persona. You know, you can find the exact definition of a persona. There’s probably a million articles and a million of YouTube videos out there explaining how to create, you know, how the best way to do a persona. It might be a little different if you’re selling, shoes versus selling, you know, a $500,000 piece of, you know, CNC machinery. You know, it’s gonna be a little different, but go find one that you think is good. Build your template around that, and then that’s what you would use to start, populating your project so that it knows more about you and your business and your offer and all that stuff.
So is that is that kinda what you’re looking for? So I think let let’s let’s, I wanna turn this into, like, a couple of steps. Right? So, like, it sounds like take a problem you have. Yep. Workshop it with Chat GPT, and then essentially leverage ChatGPT to build out the project instructions. Right? And I think if if someone hasn’t used a project in either ChatGPT or Claude, the way it works is you are you are essentially creating a folder with folder wide instructions. Right? It’s you’ve got project instructions, and you’re like, for this project, I hate the URL whatever. Like, you’re a marketing expert, but everyone tells me it works. Like Yeah.
**Joe Casabona:** And You have to give it instructions. Right? Like, you know Yeah. There’s a million different I shouldn’t say there’s a million, but there’s dozens of, frameworks to use, you know, the role, goal, con you know, role, all that, those types of things. You still wanna give it instructions as to what exactly you want to do. That also is another thing. Like, one of the coolest ways I’ve ex I’ve I’ve seen people explain how to create instructions for either the custom GPT or for the, or for, the projects is to go find job description. Like, say Mhmm. Like, you go on, like, a, maybe a, I’m trying to think, like, some some there was a great website, and it’s buried somewhere in my notes. LinkedIn jobs. Yeah. Yeah.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. There there’s there was one where he had where it described all these jobs. It was a giant, directory, and I can’t remember. It’s buried way deep into my notes somewhere. But you would just go on there and it described everything perfectly because people would use that to build their resumes off of or they would use it to build, job descriptions. Yeah. Or an employer would would use it as, like, a template to create, a job description too. Right? It’s like, hey.
We’re looking for whatever. Here are your duties. Here are your well, just go grab something like that, and, you know and and all this kinda led me to just trying to document my stuff more. Like, I use Notion a lot because I’m always trying to write down my processes as much. And I was horrible at this the last ten years, but it’s like but, man, I’ll tell you what. When you start doing this, now it’s very easy to just start dragging that stuff in the chat g p t or into any AI that you’re using. And now it’s like you you see how I’m saying? Like, but you you would start from there, like, with the role. It it just
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah.
**Corey Koehler:** And t’s kinda crazy. But, like, once you start using AI a lot more, you start to realize you can use it for everything. Like, you I can use it to create something to help me create other things. You know what I mean? It’s like you’re it’s yeah. It’s just it starts to blow your mind after a while. But, yeah, you, but that’s how I would do it. Just start from, like, zero and just start building out.
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. I I I really like that a lot because I think, like, I you know, it’s one of the things that ChatGPT does is help with blank slate syndrome or blank canvas syndrome. Mhmm. But when you’re starting a project, you can almost feel that way. And so, like, just getting the start of, like, hey. I need a project to help me with my podcast show notes or my marketing efforts. So, I I really like that. Okay.
So I want to, wrap up here. As usual, we’re going overtime. But, if I wanna ask you, I know you mentioned it earlier, but, like, how how much time do you feel like this saves you in in a week? Or, like, or, let’s not even just time. Right? Like, what is what is the positive impact it’s had on your business and your life since implementing or since, like, integrating this stuff into your workflow a year ago?
Corey Koehler: It allows me to do more, which is a super obvious answer, but it’s like and I’m able to offer more, what am I looking for? More services to other people. Like, for instance, on my on the Google Ads side, on my media buying side of my career, it’s like, in the past, you know, two, three years ago, like, I had clients. It’s like, you know, I’m gonna have to convince them to go and hire a copywriter for, you know, who knows how many, you know, hundreds, thousands of dollars to to hire a copywriter. Now we can get pretty damn close. I’ll just hop on a a call with a with a client, and we’ll just talk like we are right now on, like, Riverside or name your, you know, video conferencing. And now we have a transcript. Now I can take that, and I can create that. I can create all kinds of content out of what we just talked about.
I can use it to build landing pages, copy, and all that kind of stuff. Like, I I have a custom software company. This is exactly what happened with us. And they have all these case studies, but they’re, like, they’re all they’re programmers, dude. They don’t wanna sit there and, like, hammer away on case studies and whatever. So I’m like, here, Give some to me. Boom. You know? And I just started, you know, went and phoned a great example of a case study.
Mhmm. And then I just went and built their case study with that template. So that that’s one huge way. Other than that, I would say that a big time saver is it’s kinda like a there’s a checks and balances kind of a way that I use AI as well. A couple weeks ago, I just did a blog post on this. It was like a meta coach, and you would go ask it, you know, like, hey. Am I am I staying on the right path? And this this is a huge time saver that you can’t really put a number on it, you know, because once you start veering off the path, you know, you don’t know how much time that’s gonna cost you because, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know, but it will keep me in line. Right? I don’t trust it a %, but I would say 80 to 90% of the way there.
It’s like, it understands what I’m trying to do, and it’s like, hey. You know, maybe you don’t wanna, you know, write a blog post or you’re starting to get off topic a little bit. You know? So, like, just ideation save me time from going down the wrong path or choosing the wrong business opportunity because it already knows my skills. It knows me. And those are more higher level probably than what you’re looking for. But
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. So, like so, like, have you been able to, like, you know, take more vacation, spend more time with your wife? Have you you know, you don’t gotta give me numbers, but, like, have you been able to work less or make more? Like like, what’s, what’s something that this system has really done for you tangibly?
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. Definitely make more because, you know, using some of my client stuff, it’s like, I can just, like, here’s another service I can offer you that I couldn’t offer you a year you know, last year or two years ago. Right. More time, yes. I can get my work done faster. So I definitely have more time to spend with other people, with my family, with my friends, or whatever. But I would say though that sometimes that ends up turning into, like, well, now I’ve got more time to create more stuff. So so you start to feel that empty space with with more stuff to do.
So and I don’t know. I think that’s just a product of, like, being a solopreneur and just being geeky about this stuff like I am. But definitely, in money wise, yeah, I mean, I’m able to I have more output, especially with my redefining retirement newsletter because now it’s like, I can put out more content. I can, start to monetize that content in different ways. You know, there’s five, six different ways you can monetize stuff, you know, affiliate income, all all this stuff that you can that I can do now because I have more output on that particular, platform. So those are just kind of, like, some surface level kind of stuff, but, you know, it’s it’s incalculable, I think, when you really start to think about it. You know, like, actually how much time it saves. And so yeah.
Yeah. It’s asking it’s like asking somebody that went from riding a horse to work every day, you know, to driving a, you know, Ferrari. You know what I’m saying? It’s just like, well yeah. You know, he after you start riding in the Ferrari, it’s like, oh, yeah. It it did take me a day to get to work instead of, like, two minutes. So I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s even a good analogy. But
**Joe Casabona:** No. No. It makes sense. Right? It’s like, you know, I often think about how horrible, you know, if I think about, like, the medical advancements we’ve made in the last fifty to a hundred years, and I’m like, man, how terrible would it have been living in the eighteen hundreds? And I’m like, it you wouldn’t know.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah.
**Joe Casabona:** Right? Like, oh, leeches are the way to treat yourself. Right? Like, you wouldn’t know any better. So…
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. That I guess it is hard to, like, quantify that without seeing the results. I think that’s really interesting. Just even Internet and social media, it’s like, you know, I’m a Gen Xer. That’s why I have my blog about, you know, talking to other Gen Xers because we’re we’re, like, the last generation to understand, like, for lack of a better word, the analog world. Right? We didn’t have I didn’t have the Internet until, like, I was in my late twenties, early thirties. And that’s, like, that’s early Internet. You know what I mean? Like, dial up, like, you know, like, that kind of thing. And now the fact that I have, like, you know, thousands of computers on my phone. I mean, it’s just like it it’s it just blows your mind, but it was not like that. It’s just Yeah.
So so, yeah, it’s hard to it’s hard to really wrap your head around it. And and this has just taken us into another into another stratosphere, you know? Just the Internet alone was, like, you know, society changing. This is it’s not even gonna be comparable. So, anyway, I’m I can ramble all day, and I know you I know we’re over time. So
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. Well, I mean, I appreciate this. Thank you. I think, like, I think that the listeners probably have a lot of ideas. I know that, like, you’ve what you’ve talked about here has or will, I guess, improve my approach to how I create projects because my prompts are generally pretty sparse anyway. I’m I’m told that, like, you need to be very specific and clear, and I don’t think I am that yet. And so I’m really excited to implement some of what you talked about here. If people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you?
**Corey Koehler:** I would say the easiest two of the easy you can check me on LinkedIn. Corey Kaylor is my name. It’s, you you’ll see it in the show notes. It’s not easy to spell. It doesn’t look like Kaylor. It looks like Kohler, actually. That would be one place. I am on Twitter, but I don’t talk about that one a whole lot.
I’m there once in a while. But I would also just check out, redefiningretirement.io. Once you go there, you’re gonna be directed in different you know, you you’ll be able to figure out anything else about me. And I did, by the way I don’t know if you were gonna mention this or not, but I I gave, like, I made, like, a little handout for everybody that was listening to the show. And it’s just basically, like, my content stack for my blog letter. You know, it just gives you, like, some of the tools that I mentioned today, and just a few pointers here and there so you guys can get that. And I won’t tell you what the URL is because it’s not perfect. So, you know, Joe’s gonna put it in the in the show notes.
**Joe Casabona:** So I’ll put it in the show notes. We’ll I’ll also set up a redirect. So it’ll be streamlined.fm/corey, c 0 r e y. Streamlined F m / corey. But it’ll be in all the places where you’re listening to this in the description, in the show notes, and stuff like that. Yep. So Corey Kaylor, thank you so much for joining us today and for spending some time with us. I really appreciate it.
**Corey Koehler:** Hey. Thank you for having me on. I love doing podcasts anytime. So, and you’re so easy to talk to. We learned that in our first intro because like you said, you are almost exactly ten years behind me, like, with the kids and the business, and it was just like so it was like, oh, okay.
**Joe Casabona:** And thank you, Elizabeth, for talking about your howl.
**Corey Koehler:** Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to her. She figured this whole thing out. So
**Joe Casabona:** Yeah. Awesome. If she has, like, PodScan or something, this will show up in her alerts now because we’ve mentioned her. So Nice.
Thanks, Elizabeth. Thank you, Corey, and thank you to everyone listening. Until next time. I hope you find some space in your week.
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